


Blood Roots

by Shinyo_Hi



Category: Vampire Academy & Related Fandoms, Vampire Academy (2014), Vampire Academy Series - Richelle Mead
Genre: Fanfiction, Gen, Multi, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-10-14 01:11:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17498813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinyo_Hi/pseuds/Shinyo_Hi
Summary: "Blood Roots" ~ A "Vampire Academy" FanfictionSaint Vladimir's is not the most vampiric of academies. Sure there may be fresh feeders full of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yes, there may be half-human, half-vampire protectors in training to guard students from the evil, night bloodsuckers, but it isn't honestly that different from any other normal boarding school.Or, so some believe.After fully learning about and first attending St. Vladimir's Academy, three individuals lives' clash. What will happen when these students form an unnatural bond with one another?Please, read on to find out. . .





	1. Prologue - Micah

“Don't worry, Micah, it's only your first day,” my mom soothed. “I'm very sure everything will go according as planned. Don't you?”

“Yes mom.”

I guessed and hoped it was true. Out of all days, an attack on the school shouldn't have happened the first day I attended.

“Don't make the kid nervous and worry, Blondie. We wouldn't want the others to bug him since he looks anxious,” my dad joked.

“Very funny, Miguel.”

“At least I'm the parent who attempts to diffuse any tension instead of create it. So, are you ready to go to  _this_ Academy buddy? It’ll be different from the one you’re used to.” My dad’s dark eyes peered at me from the interior rear-view mirror.

“Yeah, I am really excited! I cannot wait to meet my classmates,” I nearly squealed, but didn’t since my parents raised a boy and not a squeamish girl my sister appeared to have become.

“And make some friends,” my mom suggested.

“And kick their asses in training sessions.”

I covered my mouth. That was one of the few times either of my parents cursed in front of me.

“Miguel!” My mom scolded him like he was the son and hit his shoulder.

Moments later, my dad nearly drove off the road. All our hearts raced as each of us realized we nearly crashed into the trees surrounding the Academy. Mom and dad then burst open with laughter, scaring me for a slight moment at the sudden sound. It was unusual to hear dad laugh since he rarely did, but whenever it happen, he almost alway was with mom.

“Son, you now know how dangerous it is being with your mother,” he managed to say in-between chuckles.

“Also that this doesn't have anything to do with Strigoi!” Mom’s exclaimed statement caused me to join in with the fun.

“No. She tries to run us off the highway because she is accident-prone. When you're older, son, don't ever drive with her in the passenger seat. That is a warning from me to you.” Dad briefly took the time to turn around and smile at me. “Okay?”

“Yeah, dad, thanks.” I smiled back at him.

“Eyes on the road, Miguel!”

Remembering he was the one driving, dad turned back his attention to the stretch of pavement ahead.

“Oh! We are almost there. I can't wait to see Rose again.”

“You actually want to see her, weren't you once frenemies at some point in your life?”

I looked out my tinted window, seeing nothing, but not the least bit interested in hearing my parents conversation. I couldn't help, but hear them talk since I was—regrettably—not deaf.

“Yeah, but there were plenty of people who liked her and didn't. Things have changed over the years, I suppose. She and Dimitri are an amazing couple, I would know since I went to their wedding too many years ago.”

“Right, right. How many years has it been since we've met the Queen and her husband?”

“Sheesh, it's been… _years_ since together we met them, but a few less since attending their wedding. Why?”

“Didn't you hear? They have a little Dragozera attending the Academy.”

“How long have I been out of this circle? How come I didn’t know that‽”

“Beats me, a fellow guardian slipped me the information a few days prior to our current drive.”

“Oh really? Was this “guardian” at the enrollment organization where Lord Ozera attended?”

“Yes, but Guardian Belikov had other news to tell me concerning he and Rose. News I'd rather wait for them to share with us.”

“ _Please_ , Miguel, you know I love secrets.”

“I know. You spread them during your time at the Academy.”

“Oh shut up.”

“We're here.”

My eyes flew open. Ahead of us was a black iron gate, the only barrier keeping my eager self and the place I’ve heard all about separate.

Saint Vladimir's Academy.

I called it the “Vampire Academy” of North America. There I’d learn more on how to protect moroi, a secret race of vampires those like me, a dhampir, would protect. I was half moroi and half dhampir, but I never had vampiric desires and I could stay in the sun as long as I wanted. Unlike the moroi, who could only stay in the sun for small periods of time, the dhampir were beings very similar to humans and never needed blood to survive. My mom was a moroi and my dad was a dhampir, a guardian, her guardian. He was given to her as a charge, but instead they got married.

My dad drove past the gate and crept closer to the growing crowd of students and their parents. Ahead I saw a lot of moroi with their pale faces whiter by the car headlights, but then I saw more dhampir—like me—with commonly darker skin. Once dad parked, we all exited our car.

Mom got out all jumpy. “Ah. Saint Vladimir's. How I’ve missed this place.”

“Too long.” I followed my dad as he followed my mom through the crowd, but soon he joined up with her and said distantly within the crowd, “I can tell you Micah will have an entertaining time here.”

I shut my eyes when they kissed then I decided to wander off. I passed groups of more pale than dark girls giggling and more tan than pale guys fist-bumping like the old friends they appeared to be. I then went toward the school itself, the largeness terrifying.

It wasn’t anything like home or the school I originally attended though my previous school was certainly large. Suddenly I heard someone in the shadows to my left. I turned my head up to what appeared to be a tree with low branches. Really low branches, ones barely over my head.

“Hello?”

I squinted in order to see what may have been there. Focusing hard, I wasn’t prepared for the bright eyes I met.

“Hiya!”

I screamed and fell on my butt. I wanted to feel embarrassed since a girl scared me, but I didn’t. Instead I felt mad. A girl jumped down from the tree branch and laughed down at me.

“You scared me.”

I hardly could see her face since the lot of her dark hair covered it. Both my dad and school always said and taught me that you’d see the person's face before fighting.

_You may not have known if it were a dhampir, moroi, human or strigoi you killed till it was too late._

The strigoi were the bad vampires we needed to protect the moroi from. Strigois’ liked moroi blood the best when they fed because it was a more filling meal. Yes, strigoi drank blood too.

“Good. It's our job as big, scary strigoi hunters.” She held out her hand. “Take it. It isn't like I'll bite.”

Hesitantly I did and wiped the dirt off my slacks as I disagreed. “No. You're not a strigoi or a moroi.”

She glared at me, reminding me of whenever mom saw me doing something bad. “It's an expression, dummy.”

I noticed that her eyes were bright, large and gray. An unnatural color for dhampirs. Normally we’d have brown or sometimes green. Hardly gray. I got my brown eyes from my dad. She was pale too. Dhampirs normally have tanned or just darker skin than the moroi. Not her. The light from the school and lighting the courtyard made her out to be very pale.

“I can still bite you.” She jumped at me, snapping her teeth like a psi-hound.

I was about to fall down again when bumping into something, someone actually. My dad.

“Calm down buddy. She's a girl.” She looked up at him. “Jump back at her.”

The girl laughed—it sounded similar to my sister’s—and bent down like a strigoi crouching before a fight. “Yeah. Come at me.”

I clenched my fists and stood my ground.

_It’s wrong to hit a girl, even if you're a dhampir._

That's what mom always said to me when my sister and me began to play roughly back home. The girl in front of me and my dad sighed and straightened back up.

“Well? Care to introduce me to your friend?” I felt my dad's hand on my shoulder then.

I said nothing. I didn’t know her name and she wasn't my friend so I couldn't introduce her. 

Dad huffed behind me and offered his rather large hand for her tiny one. “Guardian Miguel Rhys.  _This_ is my son: Micah.”

They shook hands and clearly she was in awe. “My parents talk a lot about you, Guardian Rhys. Especially of your wife.”

Their hands dropped and dad laughed.

“I hope they say good things.”

She grinned. It was…kinda cute, like my annoying sister. “Only the best around me.”

“Who are they? Your parents?”

She turned her attention to me this time, nearly losing her smirk. “That's for me to know and for the both of you to find out in about ten seconds.”

On a hidden cue, a woman who kinda looked like the girl appeared beside her. But not just anyway woman. It's Guardian Hathaway, the dhampir who guarded Queen Dragomir. Both me and my dad knew so from photos we’ve seen and having worked alongside her, respectfully.

“ _Roan_. What have I told you about picking on boys?”

Roan turned around to her mom and tilted her head up. “To punch first, ask questions later?”

Guardian Hathaway laughed.

“I'm sorry, Rhys. Was she taunting your son?”

“Not that he's told me. Nice to meet you—”

“Rose!”

The four of us turned our heads toward my mom, by her side an older dhampir. He had shoulder-length hair like my dad’s, but tied away dark brown hair, like, dark-dark brown. it's almost black, similar to Guardian Hathaway's and Roan’s.

Mom and Guardian Hathaway exchanged their greetings while the man and my dad shook hands. Me and Roan stood side-by-side, awkwardly waiting for the introductions of these people. Eventually they all said their  _Hellos_ and it’s my mom who finally talked to us as a group.

“So, Rose, Dimitri; Miguel said you had news to tell us.”

My dad and mom stepped toward one another while Guardian Hathaway and “Dimitri” held their hands. My dad momentarily was confused to what they were talking about, but seeing as Roan smiled away, he didn’t think of any problem.

“Together we’ve admitted Roan to Saint Vladimir's…as our daughter.”

Roan went to her mom and stood in front of Dimitri. From where I stood, I could tell mom was uncomfortable or just as confused as my dad was earlier.

“I thought dhampirs couldn't have children with one another?”

Then it was Guardian Hathaway who seemed uncomfortable. Roan slunk further into her dad and he set his hand on the top of her head. Her bangs fell to hide her eyes.

“Well  _that’s_ debatable, but her unknown genetics won't change our love for her.” Dimitri's—familiarly accented like the folks I grew up with—voice indicated clearly that Roan was adopted. It surprised me. A lot. They all looked the same.

All of a sudden church bell  _clanged_ loudly and I saw almost everyone's attention drawn toward the chapel.

“Well, there signifies our departure,” I heard through my mom’s new sniffles.

Behind us six I heard many people saying their  _Goodbye_ and  _See you soon_ phrases and soon enough, the four adults in front of me did the same. Once my mom told me bye, I really felt embarrassed because I was called  _Bugbear_ right in front of Roan. She clearly hid a laugh behind her dad who I then recalled being told he, or more so taught, was one of the more renown guardians, Guardian Belikov.

“Your father and I will see you soon. Okay?”

I nodded and then my mom and dad were gone, mixed within the crowd of those leaving and students—not seeming ready to enter the building yet, but they discontinued talking and playing to listen—ushered forward from the darkness. Roan's adoptive parents left too, but they walked toward the chapel, returning to their charges no doubt. Roan suddenly began to go toward them so I followed. A lot of other kids did.

“' _Bugbear'_?” Roan questioned.

I scoffed, instantly having the urge to yell.

“Forget it.”

My face all of a sudden felt hot, like I was sunburned.

She grabbed my wrist and stopped us from walking. We stared at one another. Seriously.

“I can't now after all that!”

She laughed one more time then ran ahead to a girl with black, curly hair similar to hers who seconds ago jumped out from behind a tree similar to how Roan had. They hugged and escaped into the church hand-in-hand after I saw Guardian Belikov enter.

She was weird, Roan. A weird girl. I hoped we could be friends since we were the same race and most likely would have a lot of classes together. She’d be a good friend to me in the future or now. I also hoped I could beat her at training too.

I knew enough from my old school to know that girl dhampirs tried harder at everything since numbers were limited and they thought they’d have to prove themselves to be at least equal to the guy dhampirs. I had a few close friends at my old school, but no-one  _weird._ I guess I liked weird. 


	2. Micah

Upon a spray-painted circle on thriving green grass I stood. I waited for the girl a year my senior my heart regrettably beat for. Soon she appeared and intense grey eyes watched me. Though other people, students my age, 16, 17, even 18, watched idly on, my attention focused solely on her as if the shouts of our peers and abrupt yell from one of our teacher’s meant nothing.

Soon we fought.

Hooks and jabs and basic dance-esque combat followed in haste. With a dirty up-knee maneuver however, I screamed in pain to my jaw being hit. I regretted not taking a stand as the girl’s hand tightened around my throat, pressed me further into the grass and her wooden training stake into my chest, in the direction of my heart.

She won.

“19-0!”

Some kids laughed, congratulating the girl. Others sighed and helped me to my feet.

“Come on man, even though she’s just a girl, she’s a girl.”

“I know.”

I too sighed and stretched my neck, wanting to massage the ache away.

“Micah.”

I turned around, seeing the girl with an outstretched hand. I shook it.

“Good game.”

I nodded.

“As always.”

I let her go off as the today’s final school school period ended. I followed my friends from the artificially illuminated yard as they teased me. Honestly I was sick of their spiels of me always losing to the one girl I called my best-friend.

The night seemed quite at first, but soon many students filled the stony walkways. Thanks to the moroi-timetable, a human’s 3 a.m. became our 3 p.m. The boys branched off and I followed my closest guy friend, Larken.

He began talking. “Man, she has weaknesses. You know everyone does. I can’t climb a rope. You’ve never dealt with water too well.”

I groaned.

“Learn her weakness and that’s how you’ll win.”

“Yeah, 1 to, what, _19_?”

We approached the commons, wiping the sweat from our bodies as our buddy, Alik, approached us, wiping his mouth from just having ate dinner. He came out of the adjoining room where vampires went to feed, next to the cafeteria. If you haven’t been able to tell, Alik was a moroi while Larken and I were dhampirs. I’d personally never been in that vampiric feeding court, but Larken has. Larken and Alik had known one another for two years. Larken and I went way back to my first few days at the academy however, befriending one another more quickly than brothers.

“Hey, guys! How was training?”

“Went okay. Boy here lost again.” Larken slapped my back.

“To the same girl?” Alik asked as we three began to walk away from the commons which smelt like too many chemicals and metals. “I swear you don’t even try.”

I scoffed.

“Try? I try my hardest, Alik. Maybe you should try it to see how it pans out for you?”

“Nah,” his hands raised in defeat. “I’ll leave you to be a girl’s punching bag.”

Larken punched Alik’s shoulder playfully. If there was any more force, a dhampir abusing a moroi case would’ve been reported. I laughed to myself at that thought.

The three of us were heading toward the moroi dormitories, specifically Alik’s dorm so we’d be able to study for our upcoming _Moroi Culture_ test Monday though I knew we’d push it away till Sunday. It was one of the few classes we three somehow shared together.

“Puppy love alert,” Alik whispered.

I left my thoughts be to look ahead to understand what Alik said.

A group of 3 girls caught in discussion unintentionally approached us. They each used their hands quite frequently to talk. The girl on the left I didn’t know since I hadn’t introduced myself to her yet, but she almost always was with the other 2. What I did know was that she was a moroi—her white skin, slim body, and casual glimpses of fangs were enough to suggest so. Same could be said about the girl walking beside her. Said middle girl was taller than either of those who flanked her, black hair hiding her pale, royal moroi face. I still saw her fangs flash as she spoke. The girl on her right I knew since we just fought. She was the only non-moroi in her little group. Her—too long for a dhampir—brown hair stuck to her sweaty face.

They passed my group, she briefly catching my looking, and as they left us be, barely noticing our presences, Larken whistled. “Man, I’d love to talk with Lina.”

I assumed it was the girl I didn’t know.

“Why _her?"_  Alik asked. “Lil’dhampie seemed _fiiine_.”

“You ever see those 2 separated? Attached at the hips, man. I don’t want in that mess.” Larken slapped my back again. “After all, Micah here silently called dibs. Right, bro?”

I turned to Larken as we continued our travels, smacking his back hard enough to warrant my hand to begin stinging. “Stop slapping me, _bro_. And no, I haven’t.”

Soon we were at and in the moroi dorms where it sat opposite the dhampir dorms which were across the entire campus near the gymnasium, mind you. As we three walked up the stairwell toward the second floor, Alik said that we—Larken and I—should go to the showers and clean up, mentioning that we had our gym bags. We did. Anything to avoid not doing the inevitable studying.

Down the hall from his room was the mutual bathroom for all the students living in the one hall. Luckily for me no-one else was in there and I managed quickly clean up within ten minutes in the room which smelt of pine and musk. Larken on the other hand took his damn good time, so I left him be and went to Alik’s dorm. Knocking never hurt when it came to a guy's room. 

I was right. That entire night, even when the sun began to rise soon after 8 and when Larken decided to join us, the three of us watched movies instead of endlessly talking about _Moroi Culture_ , and mentally wrote down several notes when Alik began talking of how he and his parents had to act while visiting the Royal Court in Pennsylvania. I figured I could use some of his behaviors as some pointers to remember for the test.

Well after people were supposed to be in bed, Larken and I left to go to our dorms across campus. I suppose we were lucky when the hall patron wasn’t there to report us. Larken and I didn’t talk much, realizing we were tired and might get in trouble for staying out so late when we weren’t even supposed to be out.

“You’re 16, yeah?”

“17 like you, just turned. Why?”

“Just wondering. Guess I forgot. You got guts, right?” I nodded. “Then ask Roan to train you, and don’t make me dare you. We live in the same dorm if you don’t do the dare.”

I groaned. Sometimes Larken bringing the repetitive failed one-on-one combat sessions really got on my nerves. I couldn’t hate him though. I did live in the same dorm as him. “I dunno. Asking a girl who makes a fool of me to train me?”

“Not a good idea?”

I sighed. It’d be different from being desperate to beat her if I could learn something new than the constant string of beatings I’d endured since we learned everything at the same time.

“Hey, there she is.”

My eyes darted to the only other figure walking around in the daylight. Her dark hair swung behind her as she quickly marched toward our dormitory. “She must’ve been at her friends, like us,” I whispered.

“Yeah, come on.”

Larken increased his speed, as did I. I supposed he wanted to catch her before she managed to get up onto the third floor of the dorm, the floor we weren’t allowed to go since, you know,  _male and female students_ _aren’t to fraternize with one another in secluded dorms_. Cliche school rules… When we were close enough to her and the dorm, Larken called her name. She halted. I bet she momentarily felt in trouble, but when she saw us and our work-out gear, she audibly sighed. She approached us.

“Hey guys. You been at Alik’s?”

I nodded.

“We just left,” replied Larken. “We wa— _studied_ for a test on Monday.”

She caught his lie and nodded, gritting her teeth, _clicking_ her tongue. “I’m sure you were. Hopefully you pass. All three of you.”

I was about to object on how she knew it was the three of us having to take the test, but Larken beat me. “Micah has something here to ask you.” Again, Larken slapped my back. I wanted to growl and hit him back in a way which wasn’t good, but I only clenched my jaw and covered up my annoyance with a shit smile.

She took her bag off her shoulder, most like just realizing she didn’t need to carry the heavy thing anymore on the same shoulder as everything else. “What?”

It took me a minute to voice anything. I really didn’t want to ask her, but if I didn’t, Larken would’ve assumed my silence to be proof of me having a crush on her. To which I don’t. She’s too weird. After all, the question sounded stupid enough to begin with. I cleared my throat and looked her in the eye. May as well just to get it over with. “Would—er, could you train me?”

I saw one of her eyebrows perk up. I thought I saw the word ‘no’ on her lips, but she hid any sign of an answer. “Go to your dorm,” she ordered Larken. His pause in breathing signified disbelief. Then he left, smart to not challenge her. Her eyes followed his departure. She then looked back at me, running her hand through her hair before crossing her arms. She huffed. “Did he make you ask that, or—”

“No. Kinda. It was his idea though.”

She bit her lip, in thought for a response. I knew it was a stupid thing to ask. She wasn’t a guardian or teacher to ask for an extra training session. I didn’t even want another training session upon my already busy school schedule. We shared a couple of p.e. classes together already though she was a grade above me. I should’ve thought of all that before, but I didn’t. Truth be told, I didn’t have the time. No doubt she wouldn’t have had the time or energy to anyway.

“Maybe,” she reluctantly said. My jaw would have dropped to the grass say it were physically possible. “Give me a few days to think about it?”

I nodded. And so I stood there, partially in shock, as she picked her bag up and walked away.

I used to hate the word ‘maybe’ since many people typically went in the negative direction to the question they answered it with. The fact that she’d actually pondered it and didn’t say ‘No’ flat-out is surprising.

I decided I could be surprised later. I then entered the dorm. The security grew rather lenient over these previous few years—the hall matron merely _shooed_ me along as I went to the stairwell. Roan no longer was in the stairwell, suggesting she either ran up the metal stairs or went to the kitchen. I soon entered my dorm to see Larken lazily lying on his bed, blonde hair all frizzy, with a book open above his head.

“What’d she say?” he asked without looking at me.

“She said ‘Maybe,’ but that she needed to think about it.”

“Hell yeah!” Larken sat up and threw the book across the room in a most dramatic fashion. “Maybe soon you’ll be able to kick her ass.”

I rolled my eyes and sat my gym bag down at the foot of my bed, relieved I wouldn’t have to use it for the next two or-so days. I then went to my desk across from my bed and sat down before my computer. The school worked on a close network so you couldn’t do much. You could email students—mainly inter those at the Academy, but there are exceptions—and complete document assignments.

An exception would’ve been my mom, or family in general. Her newest email in bold, I clicked on it and read through her well-documented life back home. There were pictures attached, so I downloaded them. My mom loved pictures, particularly of the discreet ones. I saw photographs of our family dog, Tula, and my baby brother of 3 or-so months, Myles.

 _God_ , I’d travel as many miles needed just to see them again. If my dad didn’t have to return to Moscow for work, I would’ve been able to see them over the holidays more often since they lived in Pennsylvania for a time. My parents, I mean. It’d been years since I’d seen my dad, it’d been _years_ since I’d seen my mom. Myles didn’t know who I was, his older and only brother—

“Whatcha reading?” Larken scared me. I slammed my hands on the desk and _huffed_ , and he laughed when he realized what he did. “Sorry, dude.”

I sighed. “It’s fine. It’s my mom, she’s just telling me about life.”

I showed him the screen. He read a bit. “You have a brother?”

I _mmhm’d_. I let him read the rest of the email since there was nothing conspicuous to hide. Then he highlighted a phrase.

“‘ _Please send me pictures._ ’ Come on, _bro_.” Larken then turned the camera of my laptop on. “Mom’s orders.”

I set the timer for three seconds, seeing Larken scramble for a good position in the background on the screen, attempting to not burst out laughing, and heard him yell _‘shit’_ as I also heard a bone pop once the screen flash. I laughed right after, so much so I knew my face transitioned to red for a bit. He fell and I immediately knew I was going to send her _that_ one. Yes, that meant we took several. At the end of ten minutes and a scripted email of what my week entailed, I sent the virtual telegram to Moscow. After that I fell onto my bed, exhausted.


	3. Roan

It was Sunday. Calista and I sat in her dorm, not working on our professional article assignment for our mutual art class, and instead tossed around our ideas for what to do for the upcoming school dance. The Equinox Dance. The majority of if not all the high schoolers would be there in the Commons, gyrating and judging. Neither me or Calista had gone in the past. Not last year, not the year before. I didn’t go during my freshman year since she wasn’t one yet.

Just as we came to the consensus of skipping it again, Calista’s roommate appeared. Susan Voda; whose father was a previous contender in the Monarch elections, but failed and lost to my best-friend’s mom. Susan said, “If my druthers matter, you two should just go and go together since you do everything together anyway.”

Calista laughed a lovely girly laugh where her face scrunched up. It made me smile—most things she did made me smile. She turned her head away from me and toward her roommate who rifled through her bedsheets. “Well if your _druthers_ did matter, they should’ve taken into consideration that neither me or Roan are social people.”

“Hardyhar.”

“Whatcha doing?” Not that it was my place I asked Susan as her hand rose from beneath her mattress. In her hand a tablet.

“Going over to the D-wins. Braga’s impending _Elemental_ test is really driving me up the walls.”

Susan left us her ‘see you later’ and with our ‘good lucks’. Calista slumped against her bed, arms flailed like a dead bird.

“I wish I could go over to the Drozdov twins and practice magic,” I heard her whisper to herself.

Nearly every moroi who attended this academy will or had specialized in one of the four elements. It’s easy to remember by FAWE: Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. The Moroi could use their declared magic to ward off the Strigoi—if they weren’t so valuable and such scaredies to do so—and bring water forth in droughts. It’s not to be used for harm unless in a pertinent situation. The students of Saint Vladimir’s should have learned that, but instead they bullied their apparent lesser victims with whatever element they’ve declared. Each moroi could declare one element and one element only. My dear Calista had an equal aptitude for air and earth, not being able to avow to possessing only one.

“No, you don’t,” I said. I rose from the floor to sit on the edge of her bed. “Messing around with those kids would only be fighting fire with fire.”

Calista rolled her eyes at me, groaning all the way. “Oh why couldn’t I have specialized when I was a freshman? It’d make things so much easier!” Calista threw a pillow over her face then it was me who rolled their eyes.

I liked the moments like these, when Calista and I could act like emotional teenagers without being reprimanded. I fell across the bed too, propped up on my elbow. It was a minute later when I asked, “Did you suffocate yourself?”

Calista shook her head under the pillow.

“Whatever you say, _Princess_.”

Well, not exactly ‘Princess.’ When she graduated, her full name was to be Lady Calista Alma Ozera-Dragomir. The inheritance of two royal families out of 12 and who just happened to be the daughter of a Queen. What a name for a 7-year-old to have spelt. When I met her I only ever used her first name, and “disrespecting a royal” I once was scolded about. Calista began going simply by ‘Calista’ soon after, and when we entered high-school she decided to take the Ozera name.

“Hey! I’m a fitting Ozera.” Calista once said during lunch. “Father says being antisocial is nothing to hate. I look like him, like an _Ozera_ , than _Dragomir_ anyway.”

She got those things right. Antisocial, dark-haired, pale. She did have her mother’s eyes though. That was the one thing she couldn’t degrade. Perfectly jade eyes. Similarly to the earrings she wore.

I chucked a chicken nugget at her that day she did the unthinkable for a female royal moroi. She caught it in her mouth! What a disgusting atrocity! I was jealous it didn’t take us multiple attempts.

 

Mind back within the reality of her bedroom, I nudged her leg.

“Hey, cheer up. Things could be worse.”

“Yeah,” I heard muffled. “I could be more like my mom.”

“That's true. Being a vampiric Queen would suck.”

Calista took the pillow from her head and sat up just to hit me with it.

“Wow,” I said. My eyes closed and pretended to be offended by her actions. “Temper-tantrum from the Princessee over here.”

She laughed. I laughed. End of that story.

Our Sunday then went by very boringly. We took a walk while there was still daylight out, something we rarely did. Very often however Calista carried her black parasol around as if there’ll be an impromptu funeral to attend in the rain, but when moroi are in sunlight for too long, well, things aren’t pretty afterward. We wandered the cobblestone pathways of the school, not caring that we were in our commoner outfits since it wasn’t a school day. The navy uniforms were required Monday to Friday. We legitimately talked about if we should go to the dance or not this time, earlier just for fun. We may have been antisocial, but as this was my final year of school, we declared that we should experience things together for once if never again.

She needing a rest, Calista sat on a stone bench carved at the feet of our school’s eponymous founder, Saint Vladimir. I stared at the dark statue, relating to him somewhat of people coming to his school to learn. I’m reminded of Micah, the proposition. The fact he think me a qualifiable teacher is one thing, to actually teach another student and a very close if not my best guy friend is crazy. I needed another opinion.

“You know, Micah asked me if I could train him.”

Calista looked at me funny. “Seriously? Is he sick of you beating his ass?”

I sat beside her on the bench, hiking my legs up to wrap my arms about my knees though it proved difficult. “I dunno. Perhaps? He was with his friend, the African-American one with blond frizzy hair. I don’t know if he was serious or not.”

“You should _totally_ do it.”

“You don’t think it weird?”

“No. You’re the best!”

I thanked her for that. We stared at the hallways and structures we’ve walked under and around and always passed and I then realized we’ve been here for nearly our whole lives, just attending buildings on different parts of the campus. I leaned my head against Calista, very appreciative of our friendship and how we’ve never let the other go. We’ve had a friendship nearly 10 years too. That in of itself is an amazing thing.

“Did you hear that?” she asked me.

I lifted my head up, neither hearing or seeing anything after scouting. I shook my head. I noticed she held her parasol like a cane, no longer needing it as the sun had finished its passing over the school and left us in shadows.

“You an old man now?” I questioned, gesturing toward—

I heard a low creak behind us then. I jumped up and looked all around the statue, not noticing anything. I was about to suggest that we’d return to the dorms, but instead I just grabbed her arm. She stood, but was stubborn and wouldn’t move.

“Come on.”

“I can’t.” I immediately turned my attention back to her, noticing the thorns from the rose bushes having vined and were tightening around her ankles. “Roan!” she cried out. A pained grimace on her pretty face.

I attempted to tear them off of her, only pricking my fingers and tearing my palms many a time in the process. It was too late to notice when I stood to try and pull her away from the statue that my feet too were entangled in the vines. My hand was firmly grasping her arm when I fell, yelling ‘Shit,’ then she fell too, like a domino. I attempted to catch her, but I figured the grass would’ve been a softer landing than a human body with bones. She landed on her stomach, hard. She coughed. And I heard a familiar laugh come from behind us.

World upside-down, I saw a girl with red hair appear from behind a pillar along with her henchmen. They all laughed.

“Aw, did I interrupt your sweet evening?”

I growled. If it weren’t for the thorns around my ankles, I would’ve jumped up to give her a piece of my mind a.k.a. bruise my knuckles up. She specialized in Earth magic, granting her the ability to manipulate the vines, more specifically the thorns into deadly restraints.

Calista’s head left the soft grass to look up to the girl, hurt in her eyes. “Why do you have to do this, Rhonda? Why us?”

“Just because, and it isn’t as if you fight back.” Rhonda’s laugh annoyed me months ago. Hearing it again just made me feel more pissed. She looked over us, judging. “As for your outfits,” she _clicked_ her tongue, “may as well have dirtied _that_ trash up too.” She smiled, saying 'Goodnight,' and left with her posse, most likely returning to the commons or their dorms.

I looked to my outfit. My dusty pink jeans were abnormal for me, sure, but not my black jersey and thermal shirt beneath. At least it outfit functional. Calista's clothes were cute and worth enough to be jealous over with its 8th grade silver filigree upon velvet. 

I sat up, going to remove the thorns from my best-friend’s ankles when she stopped me. She sighed and rolled over, inhaling through her teeth as the thorns dug into her, I bet. “Let me,” she said as her hand rose. Calista had a decent control over Earth, nothing enough to major though. There were no explosions and the thorns didn’t go flying as she did her magic. The prickly ropes just retreated from us as if in fear, no longer keeping us captive.

Her now fatigued and distressed, I took Calista to her dorm, allowing her use me as support while we walked. I didn’t want her to put as much weight on her ankles after having them be as badly scraped up from the thorns even if mine stung. The hall patron asked if she was okay.

“Yeah, just tired,” Calista said, raising her parasol I was surprised hadn’t broke. “Stayed outside too long.”

I was able to get her into her dorm without a fuss. Upon my findings, Calista’s ankles didn’t need help, but I’d have to put some alcohol on the tears in my skin and wrap them so they didn’t get infected. Still I asked her if she was okay.

“Yeah, just pissed at Rhonda.”

“Same here. Want me to walk you to your classes tomorrow?”

She shook her head and leaned her head against the cold wall, closing her eyes.

In the first half of our school days moroi and novices—that’s what we dhampir students were called—had different classes. It wouldn't be till lunch that I’d be able to spend more time with her. After lunch, Calista and I had 3 of the same classes. It made me very happy to be able to spend so much of my time with her.

Out of the blue, Calista said, “You should train Micah. Show him some stuff, make someone else here invincible.”

I wanted to laugh, but instead I told her to get some sleep instead. As I left, I told Susan ‘Goodnight.’ I managed to reach my dorm just as one of the human laborers here arrived at my dorm to give me my laundry, particularly my uniform. She was a sweet lady, often did the girl’s laundry first. I thanked her and entered my simplistic room.

As I didn’t have a roommate like Calista, I was able to decorate the room exactly how I wanted. Not that I did much, just strung up royal blue christmas lights and rearranged the furniture how I wanted it to be. I put my bed in a corner furthest from the door and near the windows. That’s where I went and listened to whatever EDM music I managed to download from people who I knew. The sound began to glitch. Before I realized what was happening, I’d fallen asleep.


	4. Micah

School had just begun. First period, _Junior Language Arts_ , a class for only novices, in session. I sat beside Larken as our teacher, Mr. Guidry, a moroi, began to spiel our current lesson. I yawned, somehow still tired. Larken passed me a note—yes, boys passed notes too, not just teenage girls who gossip.

 _‘Did she say yes?_ ’

Quickly I wrote, ‘ _Haven’t had the chance to talk to her._ ’

_‘Dude. Even if she says no, at least try to convince her to.’_

_‘If that makes you happy.’_

_‘You know it’d work. You like her and if she knows that, maybe she’d say yes more quickly.’_

_‘Okay, okay. You know we’ll find out next period, right?’_

Larken nodded, not jeopardizing getting caught and given detention just for a simple ‘ _Yeah_.’ As this class’s material wasn’t one we were to be tested on, the time flew on by rather quickly. The bell rang once Mr. Guidry told of us our forgettable homework assignment for the night and Larken and I went to leave when our teacher stopped us.

_Shit._

When all the students from our class were gone and the next period’s class began to show up, that’s when he held up the piece of yellow parchment he managed to take from Larken’s desk. Next time, I’d take the note since I hide things better.

“You know I do not tolerate note-passing in my class.” Larken and I nodded, knowing we were each going to get chewed out. “If you wanted to do it without earning my attention, at least do it in seats not in the front row.” I wanted to laugh, since _that_ was the determining factor. “Upon reading this, I believe it to be about asking a girl to the upcoming dance?” I felt my face grow still. “And _if_ it is, don’t force her to be your date. Let her make the choice, young man. After all,” the teacher handed me the note, “you have at least a month for an answer.”

Larken piped up. “Yeah, Micah here really wants her to be his date. In fact, she’s in our next period. So…” Larken went to back away.

“If you think I to be permitting you to leave without punishment, you’re wrong, Mr. Ochoa.”

Larken groaned. I did too, only mine wasn’t auditory.

“Both of you will come by here _tomorrow_ for detention. Now go.” The teacher _shooed_ us away.

We immediately left him to teach. The paper _crinkled_ in my hand. When we were out of the classroom, I hit Larken over his head. “That’s for slapping my back again.” He laughed, thinking me funny. I then hit his head again. “ _That_ is for lying to a teacher.”

“Hey!” Larken began to walk backward with his hands up. “I had to get us out of there or else you’d never get that answer!”

I scoffed. “We have the same classes with Roan twice today before till lunch. I’ll get an answer!”

Larken shushed me. Classes were going to begin in a minute and we still had to get over to the gym half a campus away. That’s when we sprinted, then we ran when we made it outside. We managed to show up as the other novices were beginning the preliminary stretches. I’d almost always worn my workout gear under my uniform so stripping—myself of the blazer, slacks, fancy shirt and shoes—was easy enough then I was ready to begin my own stretches.

I took a mat near Roan and began stretching my hamstrings. I noticed her hands were red, as if they were cracked. That wouldn’t be the case though since she almost always wore gloves while outside in the cold Montana autumn evenings, even enforcing me and Larken to do the same unless we wanted blisters and cracked, bleeding hands.

She caught my gaze and waved for me to move a mat over closer to her. “How was first period?”

I’d forgotten about the paper once in my hand and looking back to my junk pile of clothes and my bag, I saw the piece of yellow underneath my shoe. “It went…fine.”

She said she just got back from what she claimed was a difficult class due to the difficult instructor. She warned me to expect a pissed off Martinez—the name of the dhampir teacher, a Mr. John Martinez—when I attended class later on but mine was more directed toward Juniors. What set him off so early in the day unknown to her.

As class went on I wasn’t partnered up with either Larken or Roan, but another girl, Nadiya. She was similar to Roan, strong and quick, but at least _her_ I managed to beat during one-on-one sessions. We focused on our own and the other’s form, not weight since a poor form can induce injuries in the long run and slow your progress. For no more than 5 seconds at a time, I helped Nadiya by being her spotter. I slowly added more weight till she couldn’t do 5 seconds anymore. She did the same for me though her face was red the whole time.

There was a break in class, and Roan revisited stretching. I approached her, asking about her hands.

She sighed. “Too far shit a story concerning a shit person,” she explained.

I left it be there.

The class ended uneventful. Some novices left for their next period. Neither me, Larken, or Roan did. We stayed in the gym, only moving our stuff more toward walls. I pondered on if I should’ve thrown away the slip of paper away instead of putting it in my bag.

Instead this class began. Officially. A mix of _Intermediate_ and _Advanced Guardian Combat Techniques_ classes. Roan took the latter. When came that ringing bell, more novices showed up. The teacher began combining the two classes into one in order to teach the juniors what seniors knew every Monday. Though not unethical, it was odd. Me and my two friends stayed in the last assembly line along with two other novices while the others took their places on the mats.

I didn’t want to bring it up again, but Larken egged me on. I leaned over to Roan, clearing my throat. “So, do you have an answer?”

Roan chuckled. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

The instructor told everyone to either begin or resume their warm-up stretching. As this class was more physically demanding, I obeyed.

“Roan, please don’t make me repeat it.” My voice strained as I stretched my back. “It was hard enough the first time.”

“Then have your friend help you again. He gets you going good.”

“I will punch you.”

She laughed again. “Try me, boy.”

I didn’t.

“Every spring each of you must do something,” the teacher began strangely. He never honestly spoke to us while stretching. “For Novice Juniors you take your Qualifiers. For you Senior Novices, you are given a charge to look after then take part in a physical assessment. You are expected to work in the controlled environments as hard as you would in the real life.” The instructor then strolled about the area, eyeing his students as they extended and retracted their bodies. “Regardless of the facts you will be fighting against and with familiar guardians and even your fellow dhampir teachers, _your_ performance is what is most important and what will be graded and will determine your rank as a guardian and may influence who you will receive as a charge say your Qualifier was successful in determining you’d be a suiting guardian, not one who messes around. With this in mind, you continuously need to be ready for anything.”

He then scared a female student. She screamed and fell onto her hands and knees. Several students laughed. Our sly instructor then took advantage of the laughter and took hold an ankle belonging to my roommate, Larken, and managed to flip him onto his back. No-one laughed at that. Larken held no form anyway.

“If none of you can’t predict the actions of others,” our instructor continued, “you may as well not become guardians. If you aren’t able to predict a strigoi’s attack or movements, how would you save your charge if you blindly swing your arms like animals?”

I smiled to his bluntness. 

Our instructor then told us the necessities of this week’s plan; each of us needed to incorporate a new maneuver into our already established fighting patterns. Since all of us fought differently—some beginning with mental tactics, the way I personally highly favored, others preferring the initial hand-to-hand combat—we all needed to learn a new approach or new technique. Even if you didn’t need to use it.

Believe it or not, there were guardians who didn’t have to fight. The guardians at the Academy an example. The guardians had a lot more people to protect—students, teachers, the feeders. Yes, they had to train us novices, but besides that, the guardians seen along the walls only had to break fights up. They never had to fight unless they were desperate enough to fight one another, like wolves for dominance.

The class went on with the seniors offering their ‘unique’ maneuvers as an example of what we should have thought about incorporating into our own combative dance. With Roan, she went with the route concerning spins. Literally holding a weapon in your hand and spinning and maybe adding flair near the end with a kick. Yes, it didn’t sound like much at first with her somewhat small voice, but when she went front and center to the group, she spun with the intensity of an ice-skater and kicked the mannequin she was told to ‘disable’ in the Dorsum-area of its back, knocking it quick to the ground. She earned a bit of applause from the 30 or-so students and no doubt a bit of respect while she returned to her spot among the mats.

I said, “Good job.”

She welcomed my comment and thanked me. I could see her itch the hands which were still red if not more, but I said nothing.

Class ended soon thereafter and I followed Larken to our next class, leaving Roan behind us as she traveled to hers. Again Larken asked me if I got an answer. Again I declined.

“You’re never gonna get an answer then.”

“Don’t start with that. You’re the one who brought it up and kept bringing it up.”

“That’s because maybe I’d like to see you beat her ass instead of getting yours kicked.”

“How about this, Larken? You should ask her and if she says _yes_ to you, then you should have fun getting your ass beat.”

We were still in our work-out gear when we entered Mr. Martinez’s room. Instantly I felt the remnant no doubt intemperate disparaging hostility. I knew both Larken and I were in store for quite a class. An unfortunate one at that, yes sir. Larken and I sat near, but not next to the other. I personally didn’t want to risk getting called out by a moody instructor after having been served detention. Two afternoons spent cleaning desks and classrooms wasn’t what I wanted.

Many a novice-majority of them male-flooded into the classroom soon after I made myself comfortable and class began. Of course knowing how to bodyguard a charge and how to handle yourself can’t just be a combination of luck, uppercuts, hooks, and being a shield. Everyone in this room knew that, but our unfortunately emotional instructor felt us too stupid to realize that. It was then I realized it was going to be a long period.


	5. Roan

Having been able to grab an apple real quick from the cafeteria, I waited in the commons for Calista during lunchtime. She’d be done with her class and near here any minute. While I waited, I realized I'd been unconsciously rubbing at my palms. I stopped. Looking around for Lina or Susan, neither appeared while students flooded the cafeteria. I assumed they were either stuck in class or eating lunch _elsewhere_.

At last at least Calista appeared near the end of the lunch line. Quickly I headed up toward her. I followed her into the neighboring room meant for only moroi beside the cafeteria for all. The male modifier—with his clipboard listing the available feeders—waved Calista over. He lead her and unintentionally me into a white cubicle where a woman, one in her promised late 30s, sat. I shut the curtain as he walked off, noting something.

Calista never bit me, but I’d imagined it felt amazing to the feeder. After all, her eccentric moan had to mean something when Calista’s fangs were pressed into the woman’s skin.

Feeders were hired by moroi in order to feed off them then basically compelled to forget after their yearly quota was hit. Then they were asked again to be a feeder. I knew that there were chemicals in moroi DNA which elicited an endorphin rush in the feeder or victim, and they gave you a high. Judging by the woman’s glazed eyes and languished posture, I supposed she was experiencing exactly what I learned.

Things considered I didn’t want to know what Calista felt during her daily feedings, so as she finished, I offered her a kleenex to wipe her lips clean. She thanked me and we left to go to class together. She hardly ever had an appetite after feeding, but that didn’t stop me from giving her an extra apple I got.

“You always take care of me.”

I _mmhm_ 'd.

I mean, what could I say to that? It was the truth.

We found our seats immediately upon entering the empty classroom. We tossed our apples back and forth as there were no teachers to stop us from doing so.

“You say ‘yes’ to Micah?” she asked.

“Maybe…I sent him an email. If he’s like every student here and never checks it, then there’s your answer.”

“Hey, _I_ check my email.”

I stole both apples. “That’s because _you_ have nothing else better to do.” I took a bite from each.

“Hey!”

I smiled, handing Calista her apple—or at least the one I thought was hers. She soon noticed my hands and decided to tell her I’d forgotten to clean them the night before, instead listening to music on my bed and falling asleep.

“You need to take care of yourself more.”

I sighed. I did. I asked if her ankles were okay and she said she _felt_ ‘ _fine_.’

Lunchtime soon ended and the classroom began to fill with both moroi and novices. They created buzzes before, behind, and around us due to their talking.

Calista and I’d share the next two classes. Both of them went by uneventful. Truthfully I always thought they were pointless classes since math is math and the mannerisms of animals nothing to be concerned about since all animals didn’t like me.

There is literally no exaggeration there. It got me to almost always be around Calista. _That_ was my favorite way to spend not just my down time, but all my time.

We separated for our final period of the day—she heading off to study her own peoples culture and I headed back over to the gym. Our class took place outside, so I made sure to change into my thermal clothing. I found every time I touched anything, my hands stung. I didn’t have any salve or bandages with me so I couldn’t use those few spare minutes before class began to sooth the pain. Instead I wore gloves fitting the crisp October air. With the chilliness in mind, I took a large swig of water before leaving my thermos among my things inside the needless locker room.

I sprinted outside to the grouping of novices already separated into assembly lines, taking my familiar place in a corner.

Issa, our instructor, told us to begin our preparatory stretches. Soon every of the near thirty students twisted and arched their bodies among the grass. It was such a humdrum routine to have us stretch, then run, then sprint across the school grounds, then balance and finish with more running on Mondays.

As predicted he ordered us 50 sets of lines. All us students began to run between two taped markers who knew how many meters apart, speeds varying so some worked more quickly than others.

With all of our hearts pumping those who finished their sets of lines had to begin their murder sprints across the school grounds. I regretted not bringing my thermos with me. I would’ve loved a drink. Despite the temptation to run inside the gym to retrieve it I didn’t give in and just accepted the constant burn in my throat and chest. I’d have to break out my jokester mask from now on since the cold air bit at my lips. It kept my face and breath warm. Despite the joker image on it I was in now joking mood whenever training. I didn’t want to be considered a joke, even if one compared to a Batman villain.

Halfway having finished my sprints, I had to take a break to breathe. I wiped the sweat and sticky hairs from my neck. I heard the _pop_ of my stretched neck but didn’t feel it as I tried to get the feeling in my face back from it being so cold.

I just needed to finish my lap about the school since class would be over soon. I’d managed to isolate myself near the moroi dormitories.

When I returned to the field, I realized I must’ve not heard the whistle.

I meshed within a grown crowd and waited for my turn at the rattled balance beams. Our instructor thought it funny to have the jittery students who just finished running to try balancing on rickety planks and platforms.

But instead I was ushered up onto the awkward arrangement of boards and beams two other students were attempting to cross. Portions of the practical jungle-gym were covered in sand, others slippery with water, some sections were more still than others and some nearly falling apart with every step. It was by far one of the easier things to complete and earn a decent grade on if you used your brain. If you focused on what was below your feet and not the end platform, well, things would’ve been easier for people. People often fell onto the airmats 15 or-so feet below since they didn’t use their brains or common sense.

We were told to do another set of 50 lines, then class was over.

My heart outrageously beat, so it took the attention off the returning sting in my palms when I warmed up. I emptied my thermos within 2 minutes upon returning to the locker room.

The few female novices present invited me to go back to their dorms to work on the homework from their _Bodyguard Theory and Personal Protection_ class, needing a tutor or else they’d fail. Truthfully I was honored they wanted me to help them, but I told them I already had plans. It wasn’t a lie. Calista and I spent almost all of our time together.

I found myself outside the door of the _Moroi Culture_ classroom after the bell rang. Calista and Susan left the room together, smiling once seeing me.

“Hey _Roanoke_ ,” Calista said, draping her arm around my shoulder. Almost immediately I felt calmer beside her.

“How was class?” I asked.

Susan answered me. “Awful. He taught us a segment we never read about. I bet all us students felt stupid.”

Calista nodded, agreeing. She took my thermos—which I refilled on my journey back into the school—so I took her bag as I always did. It wasn’t as heavy as my gym bag, but I thought it to be at least a nice thing to do. Soon a familiar face joined us: Lina.

“Hey guys!”

The 3 of us collectively gave her our greetings. We neared the commons, specifically the cafeteria. Susan and Lina went to stand across the hall.

Calista took hold my elbow then, looking down at me. I’d seen odd apologies in her eyes.

“You wouldn’t mind if we went on without you, would you? They were going to eat then we were going to review what we missed and work on a test.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay.” I took my thermos back as I returned Calista her bag.

I sighed, waving ‘ _Bye_ ’ as she followed Lina and Susan into their feeding court. I ran my hand through my hair, realizing I had the night to myself, then made my way out of the school, gingerly walking back to the dhampir dorms.

In the silence I felt alone. Calista and I may have always spent our time together, but she attended classes I couldn’t. I shouldn’t have hogged the princess to myself anyway. Lina and Susan were good people, nice friends toward her. I wasn’t Calista’s roommate, but I spent more time with her than Susan ever had.

The chilly air began bothering me. My pea-brain reminded me too late that I should’ve kept my gloves on.

I entered the dhampir dorm, passing by the students who intermingled and went to the kitchen to find something to eat. The commons and the cafeteria were a bit too much on my own. The kitchen in the dorm was a more quaint and quiet area. Not many people went there to eat. Maybe to drink, sure. I went to grab an apple since they were my favorite fruit from someone took it right out of my hand. I heard my own tongue _click_ as I turned around, seeing a familiar face. His hazel eyes staring down at me.

“Hardyhar Josh.”

The dhampir in front of me laughed and stuck the apple in his mouth then spread his arms like an imposing bird’s. There was a look in his eyes that said ' _T_ _ake it_.'

I wasn’t that stupid. I did take it though.

I had an orange in my hand due to him taking the green apple I originally went for. Very quickly, perhaps too quickly for him, I hit his stomach with my knee, stole the apple and shoved the orange into his mouth, juice spritzing across his face. I laughed when he fake vomited. The sound was disgusting and guttural though. He wasn’t the most sharp-witted guy after all. 

Josh took the orange from his mouth, indents in the orange purely from his teeth and the effort I put into making it stay. Juice poured from his mouth.

 _Gross_.

“Thanks,” he said.

“No problem.” I turned around to pick up and offer him a towel. He took it and despite the pleasant smell of it, I backed away from the pulp Josh picked out of his mouth. He hated them.

“Should’ve assumed you would do that.” He laughed, tossing the rag into the sink.

I nodded. He should’ve assumed I’d do anything since he messed with me. Even if it was just a joke. I took a bite of my apple once he went to take a water bottle front the counter, drinking half of it as if he hated the lingering citrus taste. He leaned against the counter then.

“It’s been a while,” he said after a minute. “Come to my dorm. We can watch a movie. It won’t be just us.”

I knew him too well to believe that. I exhaled slowly, wrapping my arm around my stomach. “I can’t.”

Josh’s hand went to the cabinet above my head. “Why not? You got another… Got someone else to go to?”

I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t have anyone to make excuses for. Calista was busy, but I wouldn’t be tempted again by Josh into going to his room. I somewhat cringed at that thought. My fingers toyed with the seam of my shirt. I moved away from Josh since his hand above me held the orange and it almost dripped on me.

“Some girls want me to help them with Martinez’s class. You know how difficult he is. I told them I—that I would be up there soon.”

He nodded his head, then left me be. I sighed when I knew he was far enough away.

I soon made my way up to the girl’s floor of the dorm, hearing laughter as I passed the rooms. It made me think of if Calista was having a nice time. Lina and Susan were nice people, but they weren’t exactly funny. They weren’t stuck up moroi, but it’s like, whenever they made a joke it was more self-deprecating than humorous.

I went to move on to further down the hall when a hand appeared on my shoulder. I turned around to see one of the girls who asked me if I could help with Martinez’s challenging work.

Her name was Ana.

“Hey!”

“Hi,” I said.

“You okay?”

I _mmhm_ ’d. “Just…thought I’d come help you guys with class.”

She smiled.

What I correctly assumed to be her dorm room Ana lead me into. The door was unlocked.

Ana told the two girls on the floor—who appeared to be playing a board game—that _if_ they wanted to learn of how to protect their necks from strigoi, their tutor was here. I dropped my bag near the door and took a seat on a somewhat comfortable sofa bed which oddly wasn’t present in either Calista’s or my dorm room.

From what I can remember, we didn’t get any work done.


	6. Micah

Larken and I were sitting in the commons, eating lunch. Alik was sitting across from us, some moroi girl on his arm whose name I didn’t care enough to catch. I picked at my food, bored and not hungry though I should’ve been.

Both of them visited the infirmary this morning. Neither of them told me why, said I shouldn’t care. Alik did tell me he’d seen a guardian in a bed, recovering from what seemed to be a head wound since there was gauze on his head. Larken agreed, saying Guardian Cole was there—Guardian Cole being a patrolman who sometimes took over teaching _Intermediate Guardian Combat Techniques_ as if he had nothing better to do with his time till some moroi students leave campus.

I had eyes. I knew something was off. It wasn’t just an average Tuesday.

I spied Roan as she walked into the commons.

We didn’t share second period since it wasn’t Monday, and Roan’s teacher who was actually and will be available for the rest of the week. I did however see her in our mutual second period.

Roan looked dead, but not in a strigoi way. She looked sleep-deprived and, most noticeably, weak. I wasn’t paired up with her in class, but from what I was able to catch glimpses of, she put on a brave face while lifting weights, sure, but it seemed somehow difficult to her. As if she could hardly bear to walk.

She still had that… _look_ once she walked in. Typically Roan was the among the first if not the first student in here when lunch time came, but she appeared halfway through lunch, very uncommon for her.

I was going to get up and go talk to her, but I decided against it when Calista found her and they left the area together. Per usual their schedule. I shouldn’t have paid much attention to her then anyway. At least I knew I would’ve been able to ask her about it in our final class of the day, _Permissive Calisthenics_ — a voluntary Phys Ed class for mainly novices, but moroi could join. Few did. Still there were the rebels and in every class there was some more taller, more paler folk than us more humanesque dhampir intermingled within the group. It surprised me the school allowed moroi to train, but then again, there was no rule against it.

Believe me or not, but I knew a female moroi who joined the class the same year I did. Jezebel; she was a senior, a royal, and as fragile-looking as a damn dandelion. She finished the class, lasting the whole year without an injury as if she was made for it, and graduated as being one of the quickest runners of the end course we all were required to complete at the end of each semester. Jezebel may have graduated and gotten herself a guardian to protect her, but she was more influential than words of the teacher and slowly more moroi began to join. Roan soon joined the class too, keeping to the sidelines and pretended to be an average student when I knew she could’ve been another Jezebel.

Lunch was prolonged for 5 extra minutes before we finally heard the bell ring.

We trudged through 5th period, the three of us not saying a word to the other though we sat in a line. To be honest, I didn’t want to talk. Having to learn all about Alik, well, his race was easy enough. I lived amongst moroi my whole life, so it wasn’t a difficult grade. The tests needed references, sure, but when 3 guys put their heads together, all 3 having been surrounded by moroi all the time with say four boys to the left and a party to the right, it was easy and just an excuse to hang out in the same dorm together while “studying” since if we really did need to study, we would’ve been in trouble. If you had one good moroi friend, the habits and stories would’ve come to you easy.

Me, Alik, and Larken soon silently went through Precalculus. I wished I could have still been in Pre-algebra, to learn the basic algebraic concepts again with ease instead of the new information I hardly could wrap my head around. To be honest, I began believing that me talking with anyone kinda stunted my attention to math, but I didn’t want to admit it. Though my friends’ silence then were awkward, it wasn’t new since we’d gone days without talking before over trivial shit. If you thought it difficult since Larken and I lived in the same dorm, you would be wrong.

Larken and I actually exchanged a few words before our 7th period began, talking about his attitude. Alik had chosen to sit with the same girl who was attached to him at lunch, so he didn’t hear our conversation. Larken said he had a rough night in our next dorm neighbor’s room while they attempted to study for a class I didn’t share with him. He said he hit the back of his head on a dresser and immediately ran toward the clinic to get stitches. Larken said he stayed there all night till twenty minutes before school began. The nurse attending him then sent him to class since just because he had a small cut on his head didn’t mean he could’ve skipped first period. He said high-school sucked. Both figuratively and quite literally. I agreed since it was the truth.

Guys learning about Slavic Art was similar to a situation between moroi and feeder. You couldn’t make the moroi feed, but eventually they would’ve done it, meaning we eventually paid attention. I remember one of the painting we discussed was of a guy standing on a riverbank with two white swans in the background. Why I remembered _that_ , I had no clue. The teacher told us to choose one of the painting we saw and write about it—our thoughts, our first impressions, the plausible symbolism behind it—so I chose _that_ one since it was the only one which came to mind. We students knew the drill. The essay was due next week, 3-plus pages of proper format, either online or printed out if you wanted a physical _F_.  

8th period came and Larken and I bid farewell to Alik who went to a foodie class.

 _If you couldn’t make food, have a feeder on hand at all times_.

Though Roan was her reclusive self while obeying a memorized routine, during our sprints about the school I managed to catch up to her. The air was cold so I made sure to put on a jacket. I didn’t however do what she did and wear a facemask. I saw its white, crooked teeth and bloody gums in the shape of a smile. If I didn’t know better, I’d call her a freak instead of a joker-wannabe since I saw the movies and tv shows.

“Hey Roan.”

She acknowledged my presence with a nod of her head as we ran. My breath came out cold and as fog. The area was quiet say for our _thudding_ footsteps. I was going to bring up if she made her decision of training me thanks to Larken’s big mouth, or if she elected to ignore it all together, or if she’d forgotten. I decided against it as she began to run faster than me. I increased my speed a hair and caught up to her, got too close to her liking most likely since she began to run faster.

It was a back and forth game of increasing and decreasing speeds and sprints and shortcuts. We ran around the school twice in the time it would’ve taken me to walk around it once. The two of us turned all touchy-feely while running. Pushy, mainly. I pushed her, physically with my hands and I pushed her to wake up, to get out of her funk, by the chase. I managed to get her to fall on her knee once, but then she came with vengeance. She repeatedly pushed me down and stole headstarts. I attempted to take back my lead and transform my retaliation into happiness from winning.

I ran after her, hands splayed ready to push her face-first down into the cold grass, but she turned about to catch my hands. I thought she wearing gloves like me would’ve hampered her ability to grab, but I should’ve known better. She twisted my body, arms behind my back, and pushed me into the ground, landing on my back like a discombobulated sandwich maker just throwing anything onto bread.

I heard her laugh behind me and soon her breath warmed my ear. “Like is always said, don’t give a battle cry, _Bugbear_.”

I chuckled as she rolled me over. She released my arms earlier, but I didn’t know when she had the time to pull her mask down from her mouth. Her breath—like mine—became smoke. The name _Bugbear_ on her lips made me cringe, sure. It wasn’t as if she said it in front of anyone though. My mom’s childhood nickname for me Roan held onto all these years, her trump card to my embarrassment.

“Was _that_ it?”

She shook her head. “No. You aren’t exactly a silent knight.” She winked at me. She really was the _Resilient Roan_.

We then heard the whistle blow off in the distance, signifying all students to return to the field. She then helped me up from the ground and we jogged back to our starting points. The class ended as it almost always did. Traveling across a repositioned playground apparatus made to confuse us. Running between two yellow taped markers on the grass 20 meters apart.

Larken and I went into the locker rooms to wash up and head over to our dorms when Roan called out to us. “Don’t forget Mr. Guidry!”

Larken and I turned toward her, then to the other. We forgot we had detention tonight. The both of us groaned and followed her into the school. On our way toward the English classrooms, Larken asked Roan, “How’d you know we had to serve detention?”

Roan then turned around, walking backward to respond with, “Blame the grapevine.” She smiled, turned around, and ran off through the halls. She most likely went to find the one girl she spent all her time with.

For an hour Larken and I wasted away in two separate classrooms. We scrubbed at desks and boards till our torture was alleviated by our English teacher. We then escaped to the commons, unceremoniously inserted ourselves into a group of befriended dhampirs, and talked with them till it was time to return to our dorms.

 

The week became a tango of familiarities, days melded with others.

Soon it was a familiar Friday night. I was in my dorm, lying across my bed. Larken had passed out on his hours ago, so I was alone with my thoughts. I’d managed to survive another week at the Academy. I saw my sister once. She knew how to avoid me as if I a cop and she a thief. Leaning against the shared nightstand I turned the soon-to-blare buzzers off on both Larken and I’s clocks. Adjacent to them a pair of hair-clippers I’d abandoned earlier after cutting my hair. It was a pastime I had to get used to since my parents left for Moscow.

I was about to go to turn the light off to sleep when I noticed my computer was blinking, alerting me I had new notifications. I stumbled my way over toward my desk, taking my laptop in my hands, then returned to my bed.

I logged in and went to my email. In bold were familiar names. Roan was the second sender of an email I got. It was sent to me an hour or so before school started Monday. It simply read, “Sure, what time?” It took me a minute to remember what she was talking about. I looked to Larken as his snore’s volume increase to something more than a low buzz. It annoyed me, then I remembered Larken’s stupid question and realized as I had my answer, I suggested we’d _do it_ after our volunteer class. Somehow _that_ was enough for me to know this next week would be a more-so interesting one rather than demanding.

My mom’s familiar face and new words appeared and made me feel homesick. In the event that I was going to the dance she knew was upcoming, she sent me kind words to enjoy it. Honestly I hadn’t put as much thought to it as maybe other teenagers here have, in specifically the moroi girls, and I wasn’t being sexist about that. My mom said Larken and I were silly. She also mentioned the fact that she’d like more photos outside the dorm room, with more people, wanting to know more about his social life. I specifically addressed that in my correspondence, saying that if I had a phone and that if the school permitted them, that I would.

I then took several photos for my mom as she sent me ones of her new haircut and our house and my brother and breakfasts in a bakery she loved. I took one of me and a serious expression, then a silly one, then one of Larken as he was passed out. I knew I could’ve stayed up since it was Friday, but I couldn’t. My eyes seemed to be drug down everytime I blinked. I managed to send my mom the email and plugged the device back in before falling asleep myself.


	7. Roan

I’d never put much attention into my appearance. I wasted all that energy when I was 15 when I wore makeup everyday and dresses on commoner days. Now I only put makeup and dresses on special days and I certainly didn’t on Monday. It’s because I had no perception of what that day was.

Monday in which was suppose to be 7th period, Calista and I sat in an abandoned dhampir lounge above the dorms renown to have hosted parties. We listened to some music on an iPod we borrowed from a moroi girl who wanted to be Calista’s friend, tossed a cushion back and forth while Calista wished the both of us to meet some cute boys, claiming it a _pivotal experience we should have done by now while in our teen years._

I itched my neck, attempting to forget what happened last week with those other dhampir girls, while Calista toyed with the fringed cushion. My eyes still burned.

Calista wished she would be invited to a party in order to be a teenager for just a few hours. I went along with it, wishing I had the courage to host one myself like a typical teenage renegade fitting in.

“Hey, it’s your fault you try so damn hard to be the best.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you asked me to be your guardian."

“Complaining?”

“Absolutely not.”

She grinned, absentmindedly twirling between her fingers the cushion.

“I appreciate that. Too bad you won’t take a break!”

She immediately tossed it at me, trying to catch me off guard. I caught it and threw it back. She giggled. Back and forth we went till I ducked as Calista went to throw and a vase full of wilted if not dead flowers knocked off the windowsill. We laughed till our cheeks hurt as I went to open a window. Though I had a preceding grudge toward flowers, I was glad to take hold those dried, spikey stems and toss them into the night. The thorn incident left naught but a few dimmed scars on my palms.

I went to go find a broom to clean up the soil when we both heard voices. I stopped, slowly putting my mid-step back onto the floor. Those voices from in the hall are down below. Of course people would’ve heard, the lounge was directly above the empty dorms and below the floor guardians slept.

Calista looked to me immediately, half-scared, other half still happy. The voices neared as I took her hand, ushering her underneath the red couch I sat on. We laid quickly down on the dirty floor, dust-bunnies sticking to our uniforms, and I managed to let down the flap down to cover us in darkness as the door I had closed when classes began opened. I wrapped my arms about Calista.

“Show yourselves, now.”

I recognized the voice. It belonged to the hall matron Brody—an overseer of the dhampir dorms. Calista and I heard hers and another pair of footsteps approach the couch after cabinets large enough to conceal students were opened and shut. My embrace tightened. I couldn’t see behind me, but there were footsteps directly where the soil was. I supposed either Brody or the Unknown or both were looking out the open window. I began to hold my breath. Calista’s heartbeat calmed me surprisingly. The last thing I should’ve worried over would be another detention cleaning desks in classrooms.

Brody and the Unknown whispered their conversation in attempt to hide whatever they planned. I still could hear since I had functioning eardrums.

Brody mentioned ‘It’ and _It_ beginning soon. She wanted answers, but they’d have to wait. Both pairs of boot steps wandered around the couch, following in the direction they originated from. Soon the door closed and Calista sighed. As much as I hate people doing it to me, I shushed her.

As we waited in the silence, not truly believing Brody and the Unknown left, I began to breathe more evenly again instead of holding my breath. That’s when I noticed a sweet smell. A baby powder scent.

I whispered, “ _Chara_ , have you been using that emollient stuff again?”

She nodded. I saw a smile lift up her face. She certainly loved the nickname and the creams…I made us stay there on the floor for another few minutes till I was certain there wasn’t anyone there.

“Imma scope.”

Calista again nodded. As did I. Silently I rolled out. I peeked my head above the couch we hid under. I saw nothing. I stood. I still saw nothing, no-one. No-one standing that is.

I yelped as someone took my shoulders from below, flipping my body over the couch and pinning me against the floor. My back spasmed. A somewhat muscular guy with blonde hair loomed above me and had my wrists restrained.

“Is it only you?” he asked me.

I said nothing, chuckling in fact, only once casually looking under the couch in annoyance. I sighed. I saw jade reflected beyond the red, embroidered velvet flap. I _clicked_ my tongue with a thought.

“Who are you?”

I looked back up to him, annoyed. I jammed my knee into his gut then, jabbing my elbow into his ear, originally aiming for the crook of his neck, and managed to stand up before he stopped shaking his head from the ringing.

_Some guardian he is._

“Are you deaf?” he questioned.

“Depends on if _you_ want to be.”

I began to dust off the bunnies from my navy uniform; skirt and blazer and leggings dotted with grey. He stood and I found out and hated that he was taller than me by a few inches.

“What are you doing up here?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“It’s my job to—”

“Get your ass handed to you?”

He glared down at me then. Now _that_ I liked. It gave him a dark edge.

“Is it just you?”

I felt me bite my lip, but I didn’t remember backing away from him and travelling around the couch. I found myself kneeling and murmuring to Calista that things were okay, that she could come out. Her pale hand took mine and I slowly helped her out from beneath the couch. When she could stand, I began to brush the grime from her uniform as I did mine.

“Will you answer me now of who you two are?”

Calista went to speak, but I shushed her again. I made this princess presentable though she still radiated beauty despite the grey within her dark hair. A flurry fell on the wooden floor after I asked her to shake her head. In the corner of my eye I seen that guardian cross his arms. I smiled, knowing I was getting to him.

Calista and I both turned toward him then. He sighed, waiting. Humorously both me and Calista knew to stay quiet, and I knew it ate at him more which is why I enjoyed it more.

It was with the fanfare I realized why Calista smelt like baby powder and what _It_ was he and Brody spoke of.

It was November 1st. All Saints’ Day.

“Uh oh,” Calista murmured.

I turned my head toward her, saying, “Mom time.”

Bolting, Calista, me, and Mr. Guardian left the dhampir dorms—not caring at all of changing our clothes and into something more professional and appropriate—and arrived to the auditorium within minutes of first hearing the familiar trumpet call. I lost Calista within the assembly so I stationed myself at the highest vantage point. I stood arms crossed against one of few doorframes leading into the room where students, guardians, and teachers congregated, watching from high above Calista find a seat within her fellow moroi race close enough to the front to be spotted by her mom.

I sighed, relieved she wasn’t trampled by our peers. Her shoulder quickly raise and fell with her exhaustion however. Moroi aren’t too used to running that much. The man who found us stood beside me then. I had to crane my neck up to the left to see him. He wore a similar stern look most guardians I’ve become familiarize with had.

I licked my lips before asking, “So, how long have you been a guardian?”

“You get to ask the questions now?” He briefly glanced down at me. I glared at him. His sigh indicated my brooding teenage ways worked. “Just over 10 years.”

I nodded, acknowledging his reply. A decade is a long time to serve the moroi. My parents knew. Many a guardian at the academy knew. Even 5 years would be a long time given the dangers. Many of us died young.

I turned my head away from him to observe the calmed, buzzing crowd. I noticed the Queen’s four personal guardians donned in their black-gold-and-green-pinstriped uniforms positioned about the only platform, one quite familiar to me. Seeing her after so long brought half a smile to my lips.

“I heard you say, “Mom time,” back in the lounge. Care to elaborate?”

I ignored him. Several preoccupied students passed us by, rushing to their seats. I quit leaning against the doorframe as the doors closed, not wanting my hair to get caught in the hinges. Awkwardly I itched my neck, disturbed at the thought of my hair getting cut because I was stupid enough to keep my head as close to the hinges as I did. I’d hate to have to cut my hair. I’ve grown it out for years.

Being a dhampir meant one thing, you either become a guardian or you move into a commune. Becoming a guardian meant you’d have to give up many things for your charge. The one thing I’d never wanted to give up was my hair. Training and braving the weather and taking the hits destroy your looks and killing strigoi added to that factor. You got tattoos for your kills and experience, you typically cut your hair to show them off and established your knowledge and credibility. Despite this, I’d never cut my hair. Only getting trims. My mom never cut her hair for her job.  Her hair was…just—

“Are you deaf now?” he questioned me for the second time today.

I then realized my thoughts went on a tangent of their own, from mothers to hair cuts.

“Yes.”

He scoffs.

“If you can’t hear, then how have you been able to talk with me without reading my lips?”

I turned toward him, not caring for his sass right now.

“Do you know what half of the letter “K” is, smart boy?”

The fanfare sounded its final warning for people to convene and I went to sit within the other dhampirs, raising a hand and leaving my answer behind my shoulder directed toward him. I squeezed myself into the dhampir crowd beside Micah just as the Queen entered this hall and the crowd stood and practically erupted in applause for Queen Vasilisa.

The Queen stylishly stole the scene with a green jumpsuit and gold blazer which matched her hair. Her head held a gold metal crown which seamlessly blended into her hair. I knew—not just through the grapevine, but from her very mouth—she preferred to wear commoner clothing hence why instead of silk and satin perky dresses she wore a not-so-fancy suit.

Micah tapped my shoulder as the rioting died down, so I turned my head toward him. He wore a tight knit sweater under his blazer as did his friend. I felt out of sorts when I noticed the females my age and race wore dresses and not just their average navy uniforms…

“Where you been?” he whispered.

“Busy.” I shifted in my seat, attempting to seem more _feminine_ than I appeared from my position.

He pushed further. “Calista?”

I nodded my head, attempting to heed in on whatever the Queen did or said instead.

 

I’d seen all this mess before. The commons converted from a cafeteria to a professional looking Hallmark dining room with bunches of ivy and yellow bush daisies and sunflowers in metal vases spread across tables since roses were cliche. Jade green linens and scentless candles aglow on tables turned into assembly lines. Green and, yes, gold were the colors trademark of the Dragomir’s. Just as in the auditorium there was a platform at the front of the room where the Queen’s table sat. All for us to notice her as she sat in peace.

The dhampir couldn’t sit with moroi and moroi couldn’t sit with dhampir, no matter what you wanted to do. The segregation of the two races was most likely one of the worst things of life at the Academy. So I sat in one of the rows of novices while Calista, Susan, and Lina sat across the hall in their own pale rows. They all borrowed dresses from the other. Susan wore one of Calista’s. I recognized the velvet sleeves.

I could tell Calista wanted to talk with her mother, but she’d have to wait till the dinner had ended. We didn’t eat, but that didn’t mean we weren’t allowed to. In fact, several folks further down the novice lines broke out snacks they’d held hostage within their school backpacks. I was surprised the guardians—which lined the walls in familiar somber fashions—didn’t stop or reprimand them.

The guardian who found Calista and I in the lounge stood close to the Queen, but not as close as m—

“You skipped class? Why?”

I rolled my eyes. “Because, _Micah_ , everyone needs a little break from class.” I sighed.

“Yeah, but _you_ don’t,” Larken interjected.

“You’re the “Resilient Roan.” You’re someone who doesn’t skip class.” Micah sounded annoyed. If it weren’t for him being my best guy friend and guardians standing, but 6 feet behind me I would’ve hit him, but I breathed in and out instead. It would’ve been useless to get into trouble, particularly in that situation when there were too many faces and mouths.

He rambled on, annoyed at me, then I became annoyed with myself and him. Just another day of being best friends, I supposed…

Eventually the dinner concluded and while exiting, the Queen bid farewells to the students and faculty, novices and guardians and moroi and specifically royals who attended. Calista wasn’t the only royal student, but she was the only one who desperately wanted and deserved a hug from the Queen. Everyone who stood and nodded and applauded for the Queen smiled as she passed. Only I saw the brief frown on Calista’s face. I bet Calista saw mine when both our mothers passed.

Soon the majority of individuals who packed and lined this room filed out after the official conclusion of dinner, going to their dorms or into the courtyard since school was over and no 8th period to attend or teach. I attempted to catch up with Calista as she made her way toward the heavily armed guardians. They always kept a silver stake and loaded gun on their person. It made them threatening to look at, but their appearances didn’t matter to my best-friend.

Calista went directly toward her mother, immediately bypassing her guardians and hugging her. The two embraced lovingly for quite a minute in the now rather silent area. I grew jealous. The guardians gave them some space. They had no right to stop the Princess, even if Calista wasn’t the next heir.

Elections instead were held for the next Monarch. It’s so the reigning King or in this case Queen wouldn’t be able to pick the next heir. According to my mom, she said the trials a contestant in the game of royalty inheritance had to compete in and complete were a bitch.

I leaned against a doorframe, just as I did a couple hours ago, kicking the jamb. Calista hadn’t seen her mother since, well, the previous Royal Visit last November. I hadn’t seen my mom in a year as well, but I knew out of professional courtesy I couldn’t run up to my mom and hug her. She had a reputation as a personal guardian to the Queen to protect and couldn’t just give in to the wants of her daughter. Despite her being a mere 20 feet away, all I could do was nod at her when she saw me.

The fact was never kept from me that I wasn’t actually Guardian Hathaway’s daughter. I knew I was adopted and I remembered faintly memories of living in an orphanage as a child. Soon the days living amongst humans blended in with the days of spending time with my new parents. I most remembered their tattoos as a kid, knowing that if I ever wanted some of my own I’d have to try my hardest to be something I originally wasn’t and had no idea was real.

I never grew into the habit of either boasting being the daughter of two renown guardians or adopted. It wasn’t a pertinent part of my life I’d preferred to talk about. This was the longest chapter of my life so far; and even as Calista and her mother talked endlessly in the few minutes they had together, I realized I’d rather be myself than her because I knew every moment till I’d be able to actually approach and say _Hi_ to my my would’ve been worth it.

Someone tapped my left shoulder. I turned around to see the guardian who found Calista and I. I straightened my posture immediately.

“I will assume, purely from your watching, that the phrase ‘Mom time’ was directed to… _this_?” He asked, gesturing in the direction of the only group in the vicinity.

I wanted to laugh. He was half right. It didn’t erase the fact he was half-wrong. Even though Calista was talking with _her_ mother.

Just as I was about to say what I aimed for, he asked for a piece of paper and pen. It was me who was confused then, but obliged. After a minute he returned the objects to me.

In the opportunity of his silence, I told him what I thought though his face for a moment contorted with confusion. I sighed and gestured. “See the woman standing _next_ to the Queen, Guardian Hathaway?”

His eyes followed. “Yes?”

I leaned closer to him, whispering, “She’s _my_ mom, in part to the phrase ‘Mom time.’”

I couldn’t tell if he was more-so confused or satisfied to having gotten his answer. I didn’t linger on his face. He reminded me too much of my dad somehow. I seen the guardians around the Queen ready themselves as if they were about to leave, so I kinda grew a smile when I realized _he_ would be going along with them. And so he did, escaping into the halls leading toward the courtyard.

Calista then left the group, walking toward me. We both gave our last glances toward our moms, not sad, but a bit blue since who knew how long it’d till we would see them again. We were alone in the hall then, all students and guardians and teachers gone. The both of us looked to the other and sighed, then began walking in a random direction.

“So, how was ‘Mom time’?” I asked.

Calista groaned. “Fine, I guess. It never lasts. Shouldn’t complain though, you and Rose never get to say _Hi_.” Calista wrapped her arm around my shoulders as we walked. It seemed we were heading toward the Moroi dorms.

Calista soon asked, “What’s that in your hand?”

The paper. I’d forgotten all about it. Didn’t even look at it yet…I opened the folded paper. There was a phone number listed, and a note below it:

_For more 'Mom Time'. –P_

My eyes grew wide. I wanted to smile, but my lips wouldn’t stop mouthing both the numbers and words. I couldn’t believe someone would go to those lengths. Especially for _me_. I shoved it and the pen into my bag, sighing.

“Nothing, just notes some novice gave me.”

Call it a lapse in judgement. I couldn’t tell Calista about it, she’d use it to talk with _her_ mother more often. My selfishness didn’t want that. Instead we began walking again. My thoughts stayed on the note, numbers somehow burnt into my mind. I didn’t let it go. I didn’t know the guardian’s name, so I couldn’t thank him. That made me feel more like shit as I wanted—no, chose to put another lie on top of it.


	8. Micah

I overlooked the suspicions of others as I headed toward the woods every day after school. Roan trained me till Saturday since the Queen’s visit ate up 8th period and after on Monday. After the dinner ended Larken and I went to our dorm, naturally, and didn’t worry about class. Roan and I worked outside to my disadvantage. Early on in our friendship I told Roan I had an inability as it was a very dumb fear of mine:

The dark.

_What would be lurking within the dark? Would you see it? Could you? Would you want to? Could you fight whatever was there without knowing what you touched? Would you be able to live with the wracking guilt of never knowing who or what you attacked, or were attacked by?_

Our first couple of days were dark. The rest were explanatory and physical and instructed, some more than others. In the following days we fought, if you want to call it that as my attempts to pin her were petty, in a purple hazy night. Roan brought and left in forked branches a UV flashlight to our fights. I assumed she swiped it from a guardian as only guardians would’ve had those issued devices.

Those nighttime sessions ran late, the cold air nippy, and she sometimes ran the strobe. How either of us got work done in the flashing scenes I’m not sure. Our stop-motion practices were never interrupted due to negligent security, but certainly the dizziness spell were half-worth it.

The following Thursday, Roan told me the environmental factors were one of the more important things she’d learned as a senior, knowing your weather and terrain. I felt as if _that_ was something not as important as knowing how to protect yourself, but opinions are opinions.

It was difficult for me to pin her. She’d end up lurking in the shadows or use the still trees in the strobe-light covered areas to her advantage and beat me. To be honest after all the days I ended up on my back, shoulders pinned to the cold ground, wooden stake against my chest, I was surprised I didn’t end up with more bruises than the few scratches I had. Roan wasn’t going easy on me, so was it luck?

Roan said a harsh truth on Friday as we trained. Aside from Alik and Calista-kinda, I wasn’t familiar with many moroi. Sure, we had classes and ate among them, but that didn’t mean I _had_ to socialize with them. _That_ was only an option.

I then learned her reasoning for bringing it up: in order to be a effectual protector of the moroi, you’d need to have a professional if not close relationship with your charge. Your charge must trust you. If your charge didn’t trust you, if you wouldn’t be able to coax them into hiding say an attack happened, then you may as well have considered you and your charge dead.

I know she had a very close relationship with Calista and as much as she hoped Calista would’ve been her sole charge, Roan told me I should get to know Calista more, or Alik more, or another moroi all together.

I spent more time with Alik than ever before during the following weekend just to ask and have him tell me more about himself. His fears, his interests, and just things in general he wouldn’t have told me or Larken when walking to or from class. No worries. To an extent I reciprocated the confessions. When it became time for Alik to do his vampire-thing, upon remembering why I’d decided to learn so much about him in the first place, I reluctantly asked if I could join.

Alik thought it weird as I never asked before or had any incentive to actively watch someone feed before. He agreed however and lead me into one of the feeder rooms. I shut the curtain behind us to hide us from the world. The feeder was a woman, one who looked older than many of the Academy’s staff, with gleamy eyes and the remainder of a smile. She wore a pale robe I assumed all feeders wore. Alik bent over her arm, exposing the fangs I hardly paid attention to, and soon another pair of bite marks were added to this woman’s catalog. And, _boy_ , were there many a pair of brown and faded dots across her skin.

I never thought of Alik having been accustomed to watch Larken and I eat our meals while I never saw how he ate. It seemed awkward from my perspective since I felt as if I were watching something I shouldn’t have been. She moaned as if—and I cringed at it, at my own thought—she were experiencing non-penetrative sex.

I didn’t experience the humiliation of seeing a dhampir being a moroi’s meal, or the mortification of a moroi or dhampir or human being a strigoi’s meal. A human as a feeder however was the norm and I knew that. It didn’t feel right, but I did feel closer to Alik knowing what the situation was and could knock an action into the bucket appropriately named _Never Witness Again_.

While eating in the commons Larken got on my back. Not literally. He kept up the persistent urges of having me find out what were Roan’s weakness, pressuring me to crack her, baiting me even. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of telling him I knew what one of her weakness were. She told me during one of our mutual classes, not even during our extracurricular sessions, but I don’t believe she realized the importance of the revelation. The information was priceless, but I kept it to myself and went to church instead of continuing to listen to him talking since it was a supposed holy day.

The church service went slow, but well. Not many dhampir sat in our designated section apart from the moroi because not many attended, but those who did treated me like a friend, not a disciple.

Our cleric, Ubaidah, wore his familiar robes etched with gold and rattled off a Romans scripture pertinent to tonight’s message: Good Health and Physical Strength, Needed or Wanted?

I prayed to be able to stare fears down, to destroy the built up insecurities and whatever held me back like a prisoner in my own mind. At least, that was what Ubaidah influenced me to pray of. He was always a nice man, sometimes treated me like a blood-son rather than one of Spirit.

Soon it was 8th period, Monday again. Earlier than day I made my decision to make a move an rediscover the difference between _Motive_ and _Incentive_ ; a previous spiel spoken by none other than Roan. She claimed there was a big difference between being motivated and incentive. Fueled internal desires versus an external promise, respectfully.

I put her speech and the previous night’s church session together, realizing _I_ could be the overcomer without anyone’s help. Roan’s help and advice had been enlightening in the times when I was alone with my thoughts, but I knew I had to take matters in my hands if I wanted things to go my way. And I wanted things to go my way for once.

Roan directed our group toward the wall of the gymnasium adorned with ropes leading either toward open windows or the roof. I was a part of that group, but I decided to keep my distance, watching Roan work her leader magic as she claimed she didn’t need a right-hand man. We were supposed to be working on a hero-or-hostage situation, but from what I’ve seen and heard and picked up, we were to have two members of our little team be kidnapped, we rescue them, and that’s it. Boring plan, yes, but at least a moroi and a freshman novice got their voices heard in the involvement and volunteer processes.

I spotted Roan talk with her henchman for this exercise of trust and communication and everything short of intelligence and felt a smile stretch across my face. I didn’t hide it. It was dark enough to not bother. As much as her face could allude to, I knew she wouldn’t be able to take part in our exercise. It played into her weakness:

Roan couldn’t scale walls, well, climb ropes that it. If it was due to the traction, or the instability, or the inability to pull herself up from the group, or the height I didn’t know. But I finally had something over her head. I finally had a chance to prove myself. And all I needed to know was that she wasn’t able to climb up ropes.

I approached my group, joining in as Roan rambled on the team’s plan. We had to demonstrate our strategy for our teacher later on in class. I caught her review at the time of she explaining the freshman’s idea of scaling up the wall. I raised my hand as if she were a teacher.

Roan’s head tilted, confused. “Yes, Micah?”

I gestured toward the ropes, smirking, and said, “Show us the ropes, _captain_.”

She swallowed. In order to create our situation, she as the leader needed to show our peers the ropes, to teach them how to climb the ropes. I knew how to climb them already from a previous pure-novice school back home. She knew she couldn’t decline. Roan was our leader for the time being. She rubbed her no doubt balmy hands on her jeans and put her gloves on. I thought she would have backed down, but instead my half-smirk faded. Soon she somewhat confidently took hold of the coarse rope and began to scale the wall.

I wouldn’t have called it exploiting a weakness though that was what I felt it exactly was. A meter above the group she pulled up. Then another meter. And another. The further she traveled toward the open windows above my feeble hope left me.

Then it happened.

Whether it have been nerves, or her gloved hands too smooth, or her fear and weakness finally coming to terms, Roan fell. How ever many feet it was I didn’t know. There was a scream from someone beside me and I felt two things in me jump and freeze. I was caught in the _thump_ on the grass and coughed groan which followed.

Roan landed on vertical, metal thermos’ belonging to those in our group, no doubt injuring her shoulder and back. Her cough sounded rough and painful. It made me cringe. A female student rushed over to us and slowly helped Roan up as the rest of us were stuck in our spots. She helped Roan walk, more like limp toward the southern clinic in fear something broke. Roan held her stomach as if she were about to get sick, but she left our sights before we found out.

“So, what happens now?” I heard the moroi in our group ask.

I turned toward the group, still somewhat shocked to what just transpired. I shook my head, realizing what happened was over, as quick as things had passed both in review and reality, things were irreversible.

The class wasn’t over and above my group’s heads I saw Issa approach our group. I instantly took the opportunity to show my fellow students of how to scale the wall properly, in a way which wouldn’t result in someone injuring themselves, particularly on the way down.


End file.
